I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to vacuum cleaning tools for the oil field industry and, more particularly, to a vacuum cleaning system that is operable to discharge an amount of fluid or material into the open atmosphere while vacuuming takes place.
II. General Background
Cleaning or reclaiming spilled drilling fluid from an oilfield platform entails vacuuming the spilled material which is then held in a storage tank. However, existing systems do not allow vacuuming or suctioning to take place while discharging to the open atmosphere and as the storage tank is emptied or discharged. Thus, personnel will wait until the tank is full to empty out the storage tank.
Using current vacuuming systems, personnel will vacuum, wait, vacuum, so on and so forth until the storage tank is essentially full. Then, the drilling fluid in the storage tank is discharged. However, the drilling fluid oftentimes is dense and full of settlement and debris as the result of drilling and/or exploration operations. Thus, emptying the tank is cumbersome and time consuming as the tank's filter is unclogged. Accordingly, time is wasted to repeatedly unclog these filters.
Drilling fluid is expensive and can be reclaimed. Furthermore, if a spill takes place, the drilling fluid needs to be cleaned from the platform floor.
Another disadvantage of known vacuum cleaning systems is that these systems require laborers to monitor and judge the fluid level in the storage tank. At such time a valve is switched to allow the tank's contents to be discharged or emptied. Both the monitoring, judging and the need for switching of a valve are subject to human error and failure.
There is a continuing need for a vacuum cleaning system that minimizes settlement and filter clogging as well as expedites the discharging process to discharge into the open atmosphere or storage tank.
As will be seen more fully below, the present invention is substantially different in structure, methodology and approach from that of other vacuum cleaning systems.